


John: Origins

by qkind



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Fluff and Crack, Gen, John being John, Pre-Sburb, actually pre-homestuck, birthday fic, dave being a good friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-03
Updated: 2014-09-03
Packaged: 2018-02-16 00:35:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2249328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qkind/pseuds/qkind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's only one day left until your 13th birthday, and that means you will be given a name!</p>
            </blockquote>





	John: Origins

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ffantastic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ffantastic/gifts).



You get home after school and go straight up to your room. It's only one day left until it's finally your 13th birthday and that means the difficulty of getting to the first floor without stepping on cake has been increasing exponentially for a week, reaching stupidly hard levels today and heading towards impossibility for tomorrow. But you've had years of practice in dodging unexpected obstacles and flying pies intended to hit you in the face, so you're able to make it upstairs unscathed.  
  
  
But this isn't what's got your metaphorical knickers in a twist; what's making you really anxious to get over this whole ordeal is that tomorrow you will be given a name!  
  
  
That should be great, right? Well, it isn't. It isn't because you already have a name, since all your friends got theirs earlier and you kinda jumped on the name-choosing wagon. And now there's the very real possibility of it being changed to something that you're sure will be awful, not to mention that you've already gotten accustomed to the ring of this one.  
  
  
I mean, what if you got stuck with something like Osmund, or Humphrey, or anything else equally embarrassing? It's not asking for the moon, you simply want to get something sensible, like your dad who got Dad, or Mr. Patel the neighbor, who got Mr.  
  
  
You will not stand for this, you decide. No, you are John, and you like being John, and you want to continue being John, and you have no idea of what's going to happen tomorrow so after deciding you've been lying in bed thinking the same thoughts for long enough, you do the only thing that comes to your mind to try and calm yourself down and you pester one of your friends.  
  
  
\-- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 8:46 --  
EB: hi dave!  
TG: sup  
EB: nothing! just, um.  
EB: you know what day tomorrow is, right?  
TG: fuck yeah the big thirteen  
TG: youre all grown up now kiddo  
TG: need me to give you the talk or youre already sorted up with that  
EB: geez no, dave!  
EB: i am not a child and i didn't want to talk about sex anyway!  
TG: sex  
TG: what no  
EB: what.  
TG: dude i meant the talk talk  
TG: look im sorry to be the one telling you this  
TG: cause its probably one of those milestones in the dad son relationship that make you egberts wet just thinking about them  
TG: and dad egbert is going to kill me via the sweetest food poisoning i could get for stealing his darling boys innocence before he could do it himself  
TG: in an absolutely non sexual way cause maybe this got a bit out of hand but i was actually talking about the fat man of the white beard  
EB: dave.  
TG: so i guess what i wanted to say and i really didnt want to be the one giving you the trauma  
EB: i know santa isn't real.  
TG: oh  
EB: yeah.  
TG : thank fuck  
EB: okay, so.  
EB: do you remember getting your name on your last birthday?  
TG: sure what about it  
EB: um, everything?  
EB: i mean did it feel right? like, did it feel yours?  
TG: dude name giving was a formality i already knew my name  
TG: like you do too btw youve been calling yourself john since forever whats this all about  
EB: but i don't know how i can be sure!  
TG: not being any other name that fits you thats how  
TG: why did you choose john anyway  
EB: okay so i wanted a name because it was stupid not to call myself something at least in my head, so i thought about it for a while, and did the logical thing in the end.  
EB: i chose the most usual name i could think of because then there'd be more probability of it being actually my name :)  
EB: like a hash table, right?  
TG: i dont think you know how hash tables work but  
TG: thats a stupid way of choosing a name anyway  
EB: it isn't! it uses logic! and it turned out right as well.  
TG: dude no you just picked random  
EB: so how did you know yours before the naming, then, smart pants?  
TG: i took quizzes  
  
  
You stare at the computer screen. You close your mouth because for some reason it's hanging open. Probably unattractively. You reread the last sentence.  
  
  
TG: i took quizzes  
  
  
Yup.  
  
  
You can't believe this.  
  
  
EB: err.  
EB: like, online quizzes?  
TG: yup  
TG: girl magazines said i was clearly an elizabeth kind of guy but the high and mighty internet disagreed and who am i to question It  
EB: oh i don't know, i think you would have made a great elizabeth.  
TG: ikr  
TG: dude talk to you later bros doing something weird in the living room i fear for the xbox  
EB: okay, bye dave!  
\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 9:06 --

In an amazingly unsurprising turn of events, talking to Dave hasn't been at all useful, but at least it has been entertaining. And you still have approximately 3 hours to kill before it's an acceptable time to go to bed. You refuse to sleep before midnight of course, you're almost thirteen after all! And you're not a loser, duh.  
  
  
You would never admit to anyone the thing you are about to do under threat of being made to burn your Con Air poster on the 4th of July, but you rationalize it to yourself the following way: you are still anxious about tomorrow and you've also finally succumbed to the allure of your Dad's fine baking skills and thus have been stuffing yourself with cake for the past hour. You need a distraction. And that's, of course, where the quizzes come in.  
  
  
First you try taking it seriously; it can't hurt, right? But after taking five times the same test because you keep getting My Little Pony names, you start thinking that maybe this was just Dave's idea of one upping you in your never-ending pranking war, and not an actual reliable method for choosing names. You ponder for a whole minute if calling yourself Pinkie Pie would be an adequate answering prank before deciding that no, no it wouldn't.  
  
  
Wouldn't it?  
  
  
No, definitely not.  
  
  
By the time you've finished going through all the name quizzes you can find, the more ridiculous the better, the only thing you're clear on is that, even though Spock Egbert has a nice ring to it, you are still going with John.  
  
  
Since it's almost midnight, and you figure you'll have to stop at some point anyway, you turn your computer off and go get ready for the night. You are in fact about to flop down on the bed, already in your most comfy blue striped pajamas, when you see a green light blinking on your phone. It appears someone has been pestering you.  
  
  
\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 0:00 --  
TG: ill save the sick rap for tomorrow when youre awake but  
TG: happy birthday John  
  
  
You can't keep the goofy smile off your face. 

**Author's Note:**

> first, there's no point saying happy birthday to Franzi cause this comes four months too late, but happy birthday anyway :) and second, if you're reading this, it means you got to the end and it makes me so happy even if there isn't actually a way of knowing who reads this, but you know
> 
> also, english isn't my native language so it's entirely possible a lot of things sound better to me than they actually are, so forgive me if it's the case u.u


End file.
